In his KLOF Mag review of last year’s So Little Happened For So Long by Newcastle Upon Tyne singer songwriter Nev Clay (Nev’s first full-length album in 23 years), Mathias Kom (The Burning Hell) wrote:
Nev is a songwriter’s songwriter, as evidenced by the legion of local celebrities who have sung his praises over the years and who guest on his new record (Richard Dawson, Cath & Phil Tyler, Kathryn Williams, and more). But it’s not just songwriters – everybody who hears him falls in love, and I’ve seen it happen time and time again. Not to oversell the cliché about erasing the barrier between the crowd and the stage, but Nev makes performing seem like you’re having a pint with him at the bar. His songs underline this, and finish with a gentle exclamation point and a friendly hug. Whether speaking or singing, Nev draws you into his world, a world where everything matters and nothing is precious except the beautifully mundane details of everyday life.
The strange thing about this is that Nev’s world is a specifically north-eastern one, his songs a hyperlocal love letter to the places that have made him who he is. Yet, far from alienating tourists and passers-by, Nev invites us in.
Nev has just released a demo single on Bandcamp of I flew a flag. He recorded the track at home, “while the downstairs neighbour was out. I’m using D’Addario flat top strings on my Taylor, as recommended by Nick Jonah Davis, to reduce fret squeak.” While the title may sound timely, this is far from the madding crowd and wears a heart on its sleeve.
“Very rarely, a song just appears. This one arrived at 4am on Monday morning, and required only a tiny bit of tinkering. I’m mindful that it’s a topic that’s been in the news, but the song’s about something else entirely. I’ve been thinking a lot too about my friend and local musical hero George Welch, who passed away last week.”
Lyrics
I flew a flag, over the allotment
it was a photo of your face and your smile
I pledge allegiance to the transitory
to the happy moments we spent here for a while.
Ch: I flew a flag, no power or dominion
I flew a flag, no crown or currency
A symbol of the true but temporary
the tiny principality of you and me
I flew a flag, over the back garden
it was a photo of your face and your smile
I pledge allegiance to impermanence
the peaceful moments we had here for a while
Ch: I flew a flag, no power or dominion
I flew a flag, no crown or currency
A symbol of the true but temporary
the tiny principality of you and me
I flew a flag, half way up a lamppost
it was a photo of your face and your smile
I pledge allegiance to non-alignment
the fleeting freedom that we managed for a while
Ch: I flew a flag, no power or dominion
I flew a flag, no oath of loyalty
A symbol of the true but temporary
the tiny principality of you and me
Live Show on September 4th
Nev has an upcoming show at Newcastle’s The Clunny on September 4th where he’ll be joining The Burning Hell and Jon McKiel, who are on tour now (Tickets).
This show will be something very special. McKiel released Hex last year, on which Thomas Blake wrote: “Jon McKiel’s Hex isn’t a shrieking witch’s curse or a bloodstained satanic ritual. He draws on a subtler and perhaps older power, like something reawakened when a shaft of sunlight falls on a dusty box in an attic. The songs on this album are the contents of that box: shadows and echoes, big ideas and claustrophobic moods. On the title track, McKiel rustles up a kind of frazzled, trippy country pop and sings about dark matter, new visions, and raw mineral ecstasy: the lyrics, subdued and gnomic, give as much credence to feeling as to meaning.” He concludes, “the true magic of Hex lies beyond the limited purview of critical language. These songs seem to come from the realm of dreams, their edges softened by sleep but their message sharp and bright.”
The Burning Hell’s latest album Ghost Palace dropped earlier this year, on which Blake writes, “Ghost Palace is, in many ways, a typical Burning Hell album for all the reasons that have already been mentioned: the wit and the wisdom, the variety and the bonhomie. But it’s possibly their most densely layered work so far. On the one hand, it sounds like the work of a songwriter who has made peace with his and his planet’s fate, but on the other, there are subtle signs that life may still be worth fighting for, that the kind of utopian camaraderie Kom sings about on Brazil Nuts and Blue Curacao may still be achievable. And in a way, the diversity that artists like Kom bring to the world is one of the things that make its future worth fighting for.”